


The Quicker Waking Dream

by SecondStarfall (beantiger)



Series: The Second Starfall Stories [33]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Chess, Competition, Curses, Dreams, Fairy Tale Curses, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, Fantasy, Female Friendship, Flash Fic, Gen, Invisibility, Medieval, Microfic, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22975738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beantiger/pseuds/SecondStarfall
Summary: So she was devastated with grief, and Alaise with guilt. When such despair rises from two people who adore one another, a curse is born from their bond. Eldritch magics, and such. Understand? Magics vibrating along the line of love, echoing back and forth until what is wished is given shape and power.***The story of the castellan at Quellheart Keep, and her literal invisibility.
Series: The Second Starfall Stories [33]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582975
Kudos: 6





	The Quicker Waking Dream

**Author's Note:**

> This is a version of the original Twitterfic, same title, posted over at my now-deactivated personal account in February 2020. It has been given minor edits for consistency with other stories and readability on AO3. ❤️ 
> 
> **SUGGESTED RE-READING:** None. Another standalone here, I believe. Enjoy!
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨

Once upon a time, long after the wolves in their woods ceased passing on their ancient riddles and fell silent, but before the Second Starfall—a cursed woman resided in the royal castle at Althussant.

No one remembered when she had arrived. While she lived there, few could visualize her face, or mimic her voice, or even recall her name—Alaise du Lièvre. Certainly, no one understood that she preferred her own moniker: Alaise the Quicker.

And yet she was Quellheart Keep's castellan, its steward. 

To list her innumerable duties at the castle would take time we do not have. But as the queen, often forcefully, wove together the tapestry that was Althussant, Alaise untangled the threads underneath her, unseen.

***

Alaise also had a curse, as we mentioned. She, quite literally, lacked a presence.

If she stood before you and spoke to you, you would perceive her, and hold conversation with her. Yet the moment she left the room, you would rapidly forget much of what was said, and how she'd looked, and to whom you'd talked. Much like how the details of a lackluster dream leak away as the day goes on, really.

Still, we chroniclers are lockpicks, and from our own prying at the doors of history, we know of Alaise the Quicker. We know, too, how she came to live at the royal castle.

***

It was a disastrous, miraculous chess match, in her childhood, in her home village.

The winner received a scholarship to the local university. Alaise overpowered her best friend, who'd held the epithet of Quick. Alaise, you see, was Quicker.

***

Zéphyrine the Quick came from impoverished stock, but had been the sort-of girl who taught herself to read not long after she could toddle around.

So she was devastated with grief, and Alaise with guilt. When such despair rises from two people who adore one another, a curse is born from their bond. Eldritch magics, and such. Understand? Magics vibrating along the line of love, echoing back and forth until what is wished is given shape and power.

As Princess Alexandrine placed the scholarship agreement in Alaise's tiny hands, Alaise did not want to be seen, and Zéphyrine, weeping in the audience, did not want to see her.

***

And so.

The village declared Alaise missing twice weekly from then on, and sometimes went so far as to write out death certificates for her, only to rescind them soon after. Always the magistrate would see her from the corner of their eye, and sigh, and burn the document, growling under their breath at this witchy young girl.

***

Now—

As it turned out, Princess Alexandrine adored witchy young girls, as she was one herself. Soon after she ascended to the throne, her best scouts sought out and could not find Alaise, so she went to look herself. She held a single, rare, silvery key-leaf between her teeth, which as we know brings on waking dreams, and what was Alaise but a waking dream?

In the village of the chess match, Zéphyrine told the queen that Alaise had found work at a horrid old inn down the road, playing the flute. What a grand little trick it was, Zéphyrine said, to have music rising from pure, empty air. 

She was right, and Alexandrine, arriving at the inn, said: "You hate it here, darling."

(Except her words emerged muffled over the key-leaf.)

Alaise stopped playing. The inn's various denizens began to bang on the walls. She looked down at the counter.

"I asked the keep if he wanted to know how to fix this place, but—" 

"He put you in the corner, with a flute."

"Yes."

"You knew what you were talking about."

"Yes."

"Well: I have a bigger inn for you to fix, Alaise the Quicker. Although one might imagine it more like a barn."

Alaise's eyes grew round and twinkled. 

"But," said the queen, "I cannot cure you of this curse, and the key-leaf is only a temporary solution. It is rare, and I am seeing tastes, and I think that dog just spoke to me in the voice of my father. Take my arm, Alaise, and lead me outside." 

"We have work to do, I imagine," said Alaise as they emerged into the daylight.

"Yes. Years of it."

And they did years of work, as we know now.

The true story, however, arose at the beginning of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment or a kudos or whatever the heck if this tickled your fancy. There shall be more! ❤️ Also, please let me know what other characters, relationships, or places you'd like to hear about. I have lots of ideas, but I'd enjoy writing a few stories for y'all as well.
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨
> 
>  **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** I realized I mentioned a castellan in the very first SecStar story ("The Botanist's Most Important Failure") and then, essentially, never again. I could have just edited that part out, but I love a challenge, and so I said to myself, "Yeah, Quellheart Keep DOES have a steward AND there's a really fucking weird reason why she hasn't been in stories up to this point." Here was the result.
> 
> There will be more of Alaise and Zéphyrine, though probably not together.


End file.
